


《deep in my bones, straight from inside》

by watanukitty



Category: Maleficent (2014), Maleficent (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Walking Dead AU, there's smut in here too oops, this fic was hard to write damn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 17:23:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21103184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanukitty/pseuds/watanukitty
Summary: Diaval is a man with no past, and with the world in shambles, no foreseeable future either.





	《deep in my bones, straight from inside》

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr and was a late entry for the 2014 Maleval Week Day 7: Blood/AU: This is it, the zombie apocalypse! This is very experimental on my part, so be warned. Title from Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. 
> 
> See the end for more AU notes.

vvv__/\\____vvv______/

He gasps, his breaths coming out in shuddering spikes, his body jerking, his hands reaching out, stretching, scrambling for purchase. His eyes snap open and close again, burnt by the muted light, and he has to force them to look at his surroundings for the first time.

He is in a hospital.

White sterilized walls. Heart monitors. Tubes, cables, wires. An oxygen tank. Closed blinds. He pulls at his his gown, removes the needles from his wrists. On his bedside is a vase of wilted flowers.

He finds his clothes on a chair beside his bed, with his shoes placed neatly on the floor below. The light in the room flickers. He notices the tag on his right hand.

_Diaval Sable_, it reads. _Age: 28_. That must be him. Must be his name.  
Twenty eight years on earth, and he doesn’t remember a single moment of it.

He dons his clothes, ties his shoes. He throws the tag away. He waits for someone—a doctor, a nurse, a familiar face—to come. No one does.

So he gives the room one last glance, heads to the door, and steps out.

\\_____/\/\/-—-^^^^

Broken glass. Shattered lights. The place is ruins.

He presses his hand to the wall, tries navigate the dark. Gurneys and chairs litter the hall. A trail of dark liquid snakes beneath his feet.

The remaining bulbs sputter and blink.

He finds himself in front of a set of double doors: locked, barred, with chains woven in between the handles. On its surface are some black paint, twisted and painted hurriedly and haphazardly into letters. In the middle gap he sees someone poke their fingers through, their skin graying, scabbing, the muscles twitching, moving, searching. He takes a step back and reads:

_ **DON’T OPEN** _  
_ **DEAD INSIDE** _

^^^——/\/\/\/\/\\__/\/

There is no one outside.

The streets are empty, the establishments are vacant, the houses abandoned. He walks through the sidewalks, down the lanes, across small lawns.

He spots her on the side of the building.

She’s lying beside an upturned bicycle. Blindly she extends her hand, trying desperately to grab him. His eyes go wide. Hers are hollow, yellowing, red at the edges.

Dead.

The skin on her jaw and her head has shriveled, and he can see all her teeth and the inside of her mouth. Her flesh and her hair are falling off. The lower half of her body is gone, with only the remaining shreds of her sinews left to trail after her.

He spots a shovel lying around, and his instincts tell him to strike it against her head, once, twice, until he hears the skull crack and crumble. He drops it and exhales, looking down at the now motionless body.

He didn’t know who she was.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he says to her. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

/\/\/\/——^^^/\/\^^—v

No one knows how it started, he learns. No one knows what it really is.

He had wandered into a small neighborhood, and found shelter with three women, sisters.

He learned that everything is gone. Radio, TV, news, the government.

Walkers, they called them. They wander more actively at night. They feast on the living. They’re already dead.

“Bites kill you, burn you out,” the oldest sister had said. “Don’t let them bite you or scratch you.”

These things have to be hit in the head.

He gathers maps, information, some supplies. He tries to get a fair amount of weapons from the surrounding houses.

On the third day of his arrival, he decides to leave. The women ask him why. He doesn’t know who he is, or where he should be going. But he does know that he shouldn’t stay.

He thanks them for everything, promises to try and keep touch. He packs his things, goes out of the neighborhood, into the road, and out to the world.

Not once does he look back.

vvv/\/\/\/\/\/\/——^^^/\/\/

Trapped, he’s trapped. He feels the walls of the tank closing in, and the pounding of undead hands against the metal hull reverberates in his ears.

_This is it_, he thinks. _This is where I die._

And he just woke up. Soon, so soon.

A crackle of a radio static pierces the air. Suddenly, a voice speaks.

“You. In the tank. Cozy in there?”

He finds it hanging by the controls and grabs it, grasps it. It is his lifeline.

“I need help,” he begs. He shouldn’t have gone into the city, shouldn’t have taken the horse he found on the side of the road. Now the horse is in pieces, feasted on by the undead, and he’s stuck inside an deserted military tank—the only hiding place he could run to when he was swarmed—and now he’s surely next on the menu.

There’s silence on the other line, and then, “…Dumbass. Hold on.”

He waits, listening to the sounds he can pick up from outside. Suddenly light pours into the cramped space and he looks up and sees a shadowed silhouette, its voice urging him to hurry.

He climbs up and out the hatch, and starts running, literally, for his life. Decaying hands try to tear and claw at him, and he forces them off, pushes them away with his rifle. His savior shoots, clears the way, and he follows her lead.

It’s not until they make their way up a building’s fire escape that he gets to have a good look at her.

Golden green eyes stare back at him in annoyance. Wisps of her brown hair blow against the cold wind, and her plump lips are pursed in obvious distaste.

He wonders how such a wretched world could still have someone as lovely as her.

“Thanks,” he breathes. She merely rolls her eyes.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she snaps, her eyes flashing.

“I just—I didn’t know it was overrun,” he reasons. He runs a hand through his hair.

She gives him a once over. “You’re a good shot.” It was both a statement and a question.

“I guess. It just comes naturally.” He doesn’t know how he learned to shoot. He doesn’t know a lot of things about himself.

She doesn’t react. “I’ll be going now. Good luck. God knows you need it.” Condescension was thick in her voice but it didn’t bother him in the slightest. She starts going down the ladder when he grabs her hand in an effort to stop her.

“Wait. Can I go with you?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Where are you heading? If it’s along the way—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he interrupts. “I can go where you’ll go.”

“Really.” She deadpans.

“Anywhere,” he pleads. “Anywhere but here. And,” he adds, “you did say I was a good shot. You could use a backup.”

She sits on the rusty railing of the ladder and contemplates his request. After a moment, she shrugs, and motions for him to follow.

“Thanks. I owe you,” he tells her gratefully. She lets out a small humorless laugh and starts climbing down.

“What’s your name?”

He pauses. He’s only done it once since he woke up, but giving out an unfamiliar name still unsettles him. He does it anyway, because it’s the only one he’s got.

“Diaval.”

She hums in consideration, hopping down the ledge and beginning to walk down the alley. “Strange name. Still a dumbass, though.”

Despite himself, Diaval smiles, and walks behind her.

/\/\/-——-^^^^/\/\/^^^/-—^^

Diaval is a man with no past, and with the world in shambles, no foreseeable future either. He has no choice to live in the moment, to go where the metaphorical tide takes him, to hold on to the present.

His present is this:

Mornings are spent walking, trekking, seated in cars. Afternoons pass as they look for food, shelter, weapons. At night, he sleeps with one eye open.

He’s become a scavenger, predator, prey, all at once. Sometimes he dreams he’s a wolf, eating fresh meat from a human cadaver. Sometimes he’s a horse, all dark mane, muscle, strength, speed, and then in the end he gets eaten by the dead, just like in the city. Most of the time he’s a raven—flying, seeking.

Lost.

And she—she is the wilderness.

Harsh, unforgiving, cold. Eyes like tree leaves in the sunset, hair like dark, twisting vines. Her heart is forever roaming, wild, untamed.

Yet somehow, somehow, he knows she smells of flowers and warm earth.

Together they ride in whatever vehicle they could find, with how much gasoline they could siphon. Together they explore this strange world, this new age. Together they live, together they kill.

He still doesn’t know why she saved him, why she keeps him. He doesn’t want to ask. Instead, he opts for this:

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“This,” he gestures to their camp, to the torn tent and the low burning fire. “How do you keep…” he searches for the right words ,“I don’t know, your shit together?”

She pauses in her task, puts down the knife and the stone she’s sharpening it with. She gives him that look, that cool, calculating look, and she answers.

“My shit has never stopped being together.”

And he understands.

She would have never lived this long, if not for that. She relies on her cunning, her agility, her stealth, her efficiency. She is as deadly as she is beautiful.

But in certain moments, in the shadows of the embers of a fire or the beams of the moon, he sees the opposite. He could tell she was once full of life, nurturing it, brimming with it. He could tell it’s gone missing, just like him, just like who or what he used to be.

This is the present he thrives in.

Two broken people, one cruel world, no clear destination. Scavengers, roamers, hunters, one is the woods in the dead of winter, the other a beast, listlessly free with no identity. She is the rage of nature, fighting, surviving, never ceasing, never stopping. Forest, woods, _wilderness_. And he—the wolf, the horse, the raven, the man—could only chase, dash, fly, and follow where she goes.

He finds that he could not live if not for her.

^^^^^——\\____vvv/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

One day Diaval realizes that Mallory is only human.

Not an automaton, not a hurricane, not a demon nor an angel nor a Valkyrie from a myth.

Human.

They were in a bridge over a river, with the mid-morning sun glaring down their backs as they look for anything that could be of use inside the abandoned cars. He hears a the low scraping sound of feet being dragged.

There is a thing that what was once a little girl shuffling towards them both. Her blonde hair is in tangles and her blue eyes are clouded, blank. She’s missing the left side of her face.

He thinks that with her proximity to the walker she’ll be the one to take an initiative and kill it, but she doesn’t. Mallory stands in her spot, frozen, rigid, her eyes transfixed on the little girl.

Diaval waits. She is closer now, her decaying hand clutched around a ragged teddy bear, possibly from rigor mortis. Step by step, the little girl comes.

Mallory still doesn’t move.

The walker groans, and Diaval pushes Mallory aside to run and ram his knife down the top of its head. Mallory shakes out of her trance just as the body falls to the ground. She looks away, and continues with her task as if nothing happened. The trembling of her hands doesn’t escape Diaval’s sight.

That night, he doesn’t ask._ Don’t ask, don’t tell_, that is what they’ve slowly built their partnership on. It’s an unspoken rule, so he holds his tongue.

He never expected her to be the one to break it.

“Her name was Aurora,” she says. They’re lying on the roof of a container van left in the middle of the road, well out of walkers’ reach. He has to turn to look at her to make sure he heard her say anything.

“That’s a pretty name.”

Mallory smiles a little, her green eyes staring into the blue black of the night sky. “When I first saw her she was crying her lungs out, still covered in my blood. They cleaned her up and then gave her to me. I held her in my arms for the first time and she looked up at me with her big blue eyes. I thought she looked like an angel. She was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Diaval watches her as she bites her lip, never taking his eyes off of her as she does with the waning moon above them. She’s silent for a long time. All around them cicadas sing and the leaves of the trees rustle to wind. He doesn’t know how many minutes passed, but she starts speaking again.

“She came home from school and she was bitten. I didn’t know what to do. She burned with high fever,” she exhales, and her voice breaks. “And she kept telling me: ‘Mommy, I’m okay. I’m okay…’”

“I held her for god knows how long. She turned in my arms. I had to end it,” she finishes.

He doesn’t say anything, he _couldn’t_ say anything. There’s nothing to say. No amount of apologies nor condolences or false reassurances could bring her daughter back.

_Orphans, widows,_ he thinks._ What do you call someone who lost a child?_

In that moment, his heart screams. Mallory is human, oh so human, complete with tears and fears and long unspoken regrets. He had never envied her so. She has a story to tell. He has none.

His heart aches for hers. In the dim moonlight, there, in the middle of nowhere, he reaches for her hand, squeezes it, and doesn’t let go. He couldn’t do much for her, but he could do this. She never turns to look at him, but he feels her tighten her hold.

At first light they go to find a nearby stream. He fills their canteens, cleans their weapons. She sits by the water and takes her knife, and begins to cut off her hair.

“It gets in the way,” she says. He nods, and watches the severed brown tendrils float away.

They pack their bags and take to the road again. Along the way, she tells him what she did before they met.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/-——^^^^^/\/\vvvvv

The farmhouse is two miles off the road—old, distinctly Victorian in style, with white painted walls and dark green roofs—smack in the center of lush fields of grass, fruit trees, and rows of corn.

The door is unlocked; whoever lived here left in a hurry. Pictures still hung on the wall, the beds are still unmade. They spend the next few days killing stray walkers who wander to the fence, boarding up windows and doors, gathering food and crops, finding the remaining livestock.

It was ideal: wide, isolated, it can sustain them for months. They each pick their rooms and look through the things the previous owners left behind. Days were quiet, nights were peaceful. Diaval could almost forget that world had ended.

But all this time running for walkers, one could forget what people do. That when people have something good, someone else will come along and would try to take it from them.

They came in the middle of the night.

A fairly large group, six of them, seven. Huge men, toting equally huge weapons. They broke the door open, started pilfering rooms. One good thing about the apocalypse is that they made people light sleepers—Diaval and Mallory had been awake the moment they stepped on the porch.

Diaval snuck up behind one of them and knocked him unconscious. Mallory stabbed one in the gut, but not before he could scream for the others.

They exchange shots, boring holes into the wooden beams of the house, shattering glass, breaking down pieces of furniture. They run around, stumbling in the dark, until they manage to get out to the field. More shots. He and Mallory take two more down, but two more men who stood as lookout appear and corner them.

“Nowhere to go, you two,” their leader steps up, his bald head and gold tooth glinting in the light of the moon. Behind him, his companions laugh in agreement.

“Put your weapons down!” he barks. Diaval glances at Mallory and gets a nod, and slowly they stoop, one hand in the air, to place their weapons on the ground. They stand back up again, both hands now raised above their heads.

The leader smirks. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he drawls. “We take one as hostage,” he pauses, letting the others murmur and comment amongst themselves at the proposition, “and we let the other go and let them get a head start, and chase after them, just for game. Good deal, huh?”

He circles them both, stopping at Mallory’s side to stare her down. “So, who’s it gonna be?” he asks them out loud.

Diaval clenches his jaw. In the corner of his eye, he sees Mallory looking straight ahead, no doubt weighing their options, calculating their possible moves in her head. He then glances at their captors, studies their faces, their weapons.

He couldn’t take that risk.

“Take me,” he announces. The leader laughs, and starts to approach him. He stops in front of Diaval, and without warning throws him a punch in the stomach. Diaval bends over and wheezes, blood shooting out from his mouth.

“Noble one, eh? Fine!” He grabs the back of Diaval’s collar and starts pulling him away. He struggles, and stills, when he suddenly hears Mallory call out to him.

“Diaval! Duck!”

He feels a small gust of wind fly over his head as he bent down. He hears a sickening crack, and he looks up to see Mallory’s knife wedged neatly between the leader’s eyes, blood trickling down the wound and his head bent at an unnatural angel from the force of her throw.

The others are momentarily stunned. Diaval wastes no time to pick their weapons up and throw one to Mallory. They shoot, and begin to run, making sure to have put a bullet in every one of the men’s brains.

They don’t go back to take what little possessions they had. With just their weapons and the clothes on their back, they sprint across the fields in the dead of the night. Together they get to their car; Mallory starts the ignition, stomps on the gas pedal, and then they drive off, back into the main road from whence they came, leaving tracks of smoke, dust, bodies, and blood.

/\/\/\/\^^^^/\/—\/\/\/\/\/\^^^—/\/\

The gunshots attracted a hoard. They power through—plowing corpses away with their car, stabbing and shooting those who come too close. They run through and over the undead, innards and blood and broken bones littering and staining the car. Eventually they get past them, now avoiding main roads and highways so as to not encounter more.

Diaval sinks back in his seat, one hand on the dashboard and the other on his rifle. Beside him Mallory steers the wheel, her knuckles white, her shoulders knotted with tension. He could hear her gritting her teeth.

It’s not until hours later, when they pull over a small town and hole themselves up in an empty pharmacy’s storage room that she explodes, and lets all that she’s been holding in out.

She drops the bag of guns of the floor, walks over to him, and pushes him with much force. Diaval staggers and bumps into an empty shelf, and turns to her, confused.

“What the hell, Mal?!”

“What the fuck was that?!” She shouts. Her jaw is set, her nostrils are flared, her fists are balled tightly at her sides. Her eyes are flashing, like lightning from an incoming storm.

“Wha—”

“You think you’re so great? Offering yourself up like that?” She demands. “What the _fuck_ were you thinking?!”

Realization dawns on Diaval’s face. He stands back up, anger now beginning to brew in his veins. Of all things, he didn’t anticipate this from her. “What? Did you think I’ll let them take you?”

"I could have handled myself,” she enunciates slowly, her words oozing with venom. “Or did you not know that? You’d think after all this time—”

“I _know_ that! For fuck’s sake Mal, I can’t do that to you!” he throws a hand up in the air. He starts to pace, to clench his teeth. He doesn’t want to have this discussion. He doesn’t want her questioning why he did what he did. He doesn’t want to look at her. He doesn’t want to explain.

"You know what?” He says, stopping to look at her. “Fine. Just think of this as making us even,” he knows he’s taking the easy way out, but there are worse things he could say, worse things she could know. “For that time in the city. Done. I don’t want to talk about this,” he tells her before moving to away.

Mallory pulls her head back at his words. “Is that…what I am to you?” She asks with a low, dry laugh. “Is that what I am?!” She kicks the bag at her feet, knocks down a chair beside her. “Is that just what you see me as? After all this time? A _debt_ to be paid?!” She yells. “Because if so, then yes, _now_ we’re even.” She spits his own words back at him, every single one of them laced with disdain.

He feels the brunt of her gaze on his back. “What do you want to do now?” he hears her say. “Do you want to leave?” She presses hotly. He closes his eyes, tries to restrain himself. He doesn’t know what he’d be able to say to her, should he react. He digs his nails into his palms. He’s not going to look at her.

“The door’s wide open, Diaval,” she snarls. “Don’t forget to send me a fucking postcard.”

What she said made something in him snap. “No,” he mutters at first. “NO!”

Mallory turns to look at him, her eyes wide, just as he faces her. “No, Mallory! You are _not_ a debt to be repaid!” he growls. “And what about me? Do you see me as just someone who owes you? Is that why you let me stick around? Is that why you’re making me leave?” He needs to know. He needs to know what she thinks of him, what she sees him as.

“No,” she replies, softly. “_No_. Which is why I don’t get why you—why you deem yourself so_ worthless_ to sacrifice yourself for me!”

"Because I want to!” he tells her. She stops, and takes a step back. “I want to,” he repeats. “And I’d do it all over again.”

“But _why_?” she cries. “Why, Diaval?! You barely know me. What we do, we do to survive,” she says. “Shit happens. That kind of thing, you do what could make you come out alive—”

"Is it so hard for you to understand?!” He bellows, his face now red with anger, frustration, disbelief. “_I love you_. I’d do anything to protect you, even if means getting myself hurt. I care about you. I care about you more than I care about me!” Diaval heaves, breathing through his nose. He said it, he had said it. But right now he couldn’t bring himself to care. The only thing that matters is that what he said, what he’d just told her, all of it rings true.

Mallory’s words die in her throat. She lets out a shaky breath. “What did you just say?”

"I love you,” Diaval answers. “I love you, ever since that day, and more and more every fucking day that goes by.” His head is pounding, his mind begging him to stop, to not make things worse than they already are.

But his heart has always been stubborn.

“No,” she shakes her head. “Don’t say that. You don’t get to say that. _Stop_,” she growls, tears now welling up in her eyes.

"I won’t,” he says, stepping towards her. She flinches away, and the small subtle action stings him, prickles sharply against his skin and chest. “I won’t. I can’t.”

“You should, Diaval,” she orders him. “You should. You’ll get nothing from it.”

“Goddammit, Mal!” He slams his hand against the nearest surface. “All we do is run. All _you_ do is run. From everything. From this,” he gestures between them, and points to himself. “From _me_ .”

"Do you think I care? Do you think I don’t know what I’m getting into? If I had it my way I would have never let you know, because I know you don’t want that. Look at this, at us,” everything is out in the open now, and he is cracking, crumbling, tearing at the seams. “But then—there. Now you know,” he exhales. Her lips tremble, and a single tear falls down her cheek. It takes him a great effort to look away from her.

“I’m with you,” he utters, loud enough for her to hear even as he bent his head down to his chest to avoid her eyes. “I’m always with you. Until I die, or up until you want me out.”

“But I’m done running.” He has no past to run from, no future to run to. He only has her, _now_, and he’s not going anywhere. He’s not going to hide what he feels for her. Not anymore.

A cold, piercing silence stretches over them both. Rain drops begin to fall little by little on the roof, but the sound, getting louder and louder by the second, couldn’t penetrate the void that crammed itself in between them. A thunder rolls, and the drizzle evolves into a downpour. Diaval curses under his breath and strides toward the door, careful not to brush against Mallory. He’s afraid. He doesn’t know what her touch might do to him.

“Diaval—wait.”

He stops as her fingers, cool and clammy, tentatively wrap themselves around his wrist. Her grip tightens, and he sucks in a sharp breath.

“Don’t go,” she whispers.

The last of his shriveled resolve falls away. The pleading, the tremble in her voice, they eat away completely at his heart in turn. He whips around, sees her eyes, sees her face.

And the levee breaks.

In one swift motion Diaval pulls Mallory to him, his lips crushing against hers. She gasps but doesn’t push him away, and instead clutches at the fabric of shirt. His kiss is strong, firm, but not bruising, and slowly he feels her match the movement that he set with his lips. He opens his mouth to taste her a bit more, his teeth accidentally grazing the skin of her lips. She whimpers.

The sound makes Diaval pull away, panting, looking at Mallory with wide panicked eyes. He opens his mouth to apologize, to say something, anything, but she mouths his name and shakes her head, and grabs him by the lapel of his jacket, grasping the back of his head to bring his lips back onto hers.

The beast in Diaval roars as loud as the thunder outside. He plunges in and deepens the kiss, brushing his tongue against her mouth to gain entrance. She lets him in, the taste of her mouth—like honey and salt and stale menthol cigarettes—grips at his stomach, making his insides churn with want, need, and insatiable thirst. She wraps her arms around her neck and he grabs her by the waist, pushing her, making her backpedal until she hits the wall. He braces his arms on either side of her head, trapping her, and they move against each other in a clash of mouths and tongues and teeth, their hands roaming each other’s bodies restlessly. Reluctantly Diaval breaks away, for breath and for some semblance of control, and presses his forehead against hers.

“Tell me you want this,” he tells her, his voice gruff with lust. “Tell me you don’t want to stop.” At her word he’ll walk away, will forget this ever happened, will never pursue anything more than what they already have. He leans in close, watching her, their breaths fanning each other’s faces.

She doesn’t say anything, only cups his face with her hands, her thumbs stroking the skin just under his eyes and his faint stubble, and nods. He captures his lips with hers again, his vigor and hunger renewed.

Mallory gasps as Diaval ducks his head to plant kisses on her jaw, her throat, her collarbones. He is ravenous—the taste her skin could only make him crave for more, more, _more_. He kisses her pulse point as her hands make their way under his shirt, blindly mapping his skin with her palms and the tips her fingers. His right hand travels down her side and across her belly, creeping up to her chest and squeezing one clothed breast, effectively returning the favor.

The storm rages on. Lighting flashes and illuminates the room, casting their melded shadows against the stark walls. Water pours down from the sky and cold winds rise outside, but Diaval could only feel heat burning in him like wildfire. Mallory claws to remove his jacket and his shirt, and he rips her tank top open, tears her bra from her skin. He kisses her again, his hands going to her breasts, cupping, kneading, tweaking at the hardened buds of her nipples. He bends down and takes one into his mouth and suckles at it, making Mallory groan and grind her hips against his.

She rakes her nails down his sides, nips at his earlobe, pulls his hair. He presses her harder into the wall, pushing his body hot and flush to hers, his erection throbbing insistently against her stomach. She smirks and moves her hands down, down, down to his crotch and palms him through his jeans. A growl rumbles from his throat. One of his hands reaches for hers and pins them them above her head, while the other snakes in between them to unbutton and unzip her jeans. He pushes her panties aside and dips his fingers into her wetness, moving up and down up her slit before settling on her clit and drawing slow, steady circles.

Mallory moans into his ear, the sound of her pleasure only making him bolder with his actions. He strengthens his caresses, causing her to pull her legs apart to grant him better access. Diaval closes his mouth over one of her nipples once again and pushes one, then two, fingers into her entrance, keeping his thumb dancing over her sensitive bundle of nerves.

He works into her, moving his fingers in and out, searching inside her for that spot that will break her apart. She struggles to be released from his hold and bucks her hips in time with his movements, provoking him, urging him on. He finds the rough patch of flesh on her front wall and adds a third finger, rubbing hard against the area. The movements of his digits quicken as Mallory’s moans grow louder, pushing and pulling and pressing hard into her until she throws her head back against the wall, crying out as her muscles clench repeatedly upon his intrusion. Diaval continues with his ministrations, his hand not ceasing to massage her until tries to push him away and tells him to stop.

They pause for a while, skin to skin, arms wrapped around each other, listening to the beat of the rain and the louder beat of their hearts. Diaval buries his head in the crook of Mallory’s neck, breathing in her scent, smelling flowers and earth and _him_, and he closes his eyes, placing a soft reverent kiss on the skin there. The fire in him has yet to subside, and he’s hungry, oh so hungry for her, but he stays still, and he waits.

He hears her whisper his name. He picks his head up and she kisses him, her tongue darting out to seek his. She reaches down and deftly removes his belt, opens his pants and takes his length out, pumping it with her fist, once, twice, making him groan, making him beg. She steps out of her boots and shimmies her pants down her thighs, before letting him to hike her up against his hips, her legs wrapping around his middle, her weight supported by the wall and his hand on her buttocks. She guides him in and he enters her, slowly, and they both moan loudly as he slides fully in and bottoms out, his hips tensing as she tightens involuntarily around his length.

Diaval begins to move in unhurried, deliberate strokes. Mallory whimpers, and digs her nails on the skin of his back and shoulders. She bites down on his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, and the taste of it in his own mouth, coupled with the sweet pleasure-pain of her nails on his flesh makes him go faster, harder, deeper into her.

He grunts, his pace growing, quickening, punctuated by the booming thunder and the howling winds. Beneath him Mallory chokes out a moan and answers his motions with her own, thrust by pounding thrust. His breath hikes up and his vision swirls. They’re close, so close. He feels his body thrumming, pulsating with liquid fire, flying. His mind dulls but his senses sharpen, overwhelmed by the smell of her arousal and the feel of her sweat slicked skin and the pitch of her crying out his name. _More_, his inner beasts seethe,_ more_. His hand finds her center again and he grinds, pushing her, coaxing her, /begging/ her to go over the edge and take him with her. She gasps and arches her back, screaming as her walls convulse all around him, clutching his form with her limbs as he loses himself completely and utterly in her.

The rain fades into a low, drumming drizzle. They lay tangled on the floor, covered haphazardly with discarded clothing and a rough, tattered makeshift blanket. He smooths back stray strands of hair, runs his arms down her arms. She tugs him closer and he complies, nuzzling the space between her breasts, his head tucked under her chin. Her warmth, her smell, the softness of her skin, her fingers weaving through his hair, the slow thudding of her heart, all of it washes over him, soothes him, lulls him to sleep. He inhales, and wraps his arms tighter around her.

He feels her lips on his hair, and some faint traces of moisture. He looks up, and finds tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry, Diaval,” she rasps. His own tears threaten to fall. Why? He cups her face, wipes away her tears with his thumb.

“Sssh,” he hums, kissing her forehead. How could he tell her? Tell her she didn’t have to say sorry, to say anything? How could he say that she doesn’t have to do anything, be anything? She is all he sees, all he knows, all he has, all he’ll ever need. He kisses her lips, her neck, every inch of her skin. She drapes a leg over his hip and he joins her, once again.

Diaval whispers her name, again and again and again. He sends her all of his love in the sound.

It’s quiet again.

/\/\/-—-^^^^—^^vvv/\/\^^^/\/\/\^^^^

There’s a certain calm in him.

Leaves fall, tides rise, seasons move from one to the next, landscapes shift, walkers still roam the barren earth.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Days, weeks, months, could have been years.

She is constant.

They drive down a dirt road, wide unkempt pastures on either side of them, the beginnings of dawn just peeking from the clouds.

He props his foot up his seat, takes her hand in his. She drives, drives, and drives. They pass by places, people. If they stop, they don’t stop for too long.

There’s no home for them, she says. Nothing will do, nothing will ever be safe. He shakes his head.

He knows. Even though the raven yearns to soar, the horse to run, the wolf always starving, waiting for a kill, even though his soul’s beasts are feral, longing to be freed, he knows.

He knows they’ll always come back to one place. Some place grounded, some place new and old at the same time, some place mapped, yet uncharted, some place changing yet remaining the same, some place cold, some place warm.

Alive.

She’s there, even when everything is building up, crashing down. Even when bleakness stretches behind and before him, even when he could be anyone, even when he’s no one.

She is the wilderness, the place that which the beast seeks. She is the wilderness, his wilderness.

She is his home.

Mallory laughs at something he said, and he laughs along with her. He wants to give her the world, all that remains of it. The intangible, the superficial. He plays with the thing in his pocket. He found it while tracking, worn on the finger of a stumbling female walker.

Sun days hit the stone and it bounces off in a multitude of colors. He cuts the finger off without any hesitation.

Diaval imagines she might laugh, when he gives it to her. She might roll her eyes, chastise him for his love of shiny things. She might tease him endlessly, sentimental fool that he is. She might even wear it.

He keeps it in his pocket. He’s waiting for the right timing.

He thinks it’s going to be over. They could sit this out. Live in a forest, or in the mountains, or somewhere by the sea. Everything might go back to normal, eventually.

He tells her he’s just a glass-half-full kind of guy.

He thinks he could live with her. Spend endless nights in her arms, soak up the day with her laughter in his ears. He thinks she won’t mind. He thinks she’ll keep him, stay with him. He thinks they could last, or live long enough.

He thinks they could be happy. Just the two of them.

He thought wrong.

^^^——vvv—-^^^—-vvv—-_____________________

Red.

Red.

Red.

All he sees is red.

His hands, her skin. Her clothes. Her lips.

He wasn’t watching, he should have been watching. She didn’t see it creep behind her.

The blood is sticky and slick, dripping nonstop from her shoulder. He closes his hand over the wound, tries to apply pressure. Mallory is shaking, shivering. She’s so pale, so very pale.

Everything is red.

“Diaval,” she tries to say. He shushes her, ripping a part of his shirt to cover the wound. She brings her trembling hand up to touch his cheek, smearing blood against his skin, marking him.

“Do it. Do it now,” she tells him.

“No!” He yells. He cradles her head in his hands, buries his face in his hair. No, no, no. Tears pour from his eyes down to her brow.

Everything is red, red, red.

“Look at me,” she says. She takes a hold of his chin. “Look at me.”

He does. He scans her face, her eyes, her mouth. He tries to memorize her features.

“Diaval, Diaval,” she whispers. Her voice is breaking, thinning. A single tear falls from the corner of her eye. “Do it.”

“I can’t,” he answers. Not to her.

“You can,” she tells him. “You can do it. You can live. You can beat this world, Diaval.”

He sobs, raw and rough. He scrunches his eyes, clutches her body against his.

“Stay,” he chokes out. “Stay with me.”

“You know I can’t.” She smiles at him, and his heart completely breaks, shattering in to thousands of tiny pieces, as innumerable as the drops of her blood on his skin.

“Stay…”

He rocks her, back and forth. She uses what she has left of her strength, to touch him, to stroke his hair the way he likes it.

She leans back to look at him, her eyes locking into his. He holds the back of her head and kisses her, trying to save her, say goodbye to her, to do something, he doesn’t know.

He tastes blood.

She kisses him back, weakly, gently. She wipes his tears with her thumbs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Ssssh,” he says, cupping her face, kissing her forehead. “Sssh, don’t talk, Mallory…”

“Goodnight, love.” She murmurs. Her hand drops from his face, and her head lolls.

Diaval screams, cries out, repeats her name over and over. He has her body in a vice grip. His tears soak her clothes, her skin, her hair.

Time moves like it’s nothing. Everything is frozen.

Then he feels a ripple, a twitch. He pulls back. Her lips are quivering.

Mallory opens her eyes. They’re cold, grey, the barren wasteland of nature after a plague.

She struggles, but he restrains her. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and reaches behind to take his gun from the back of his jeans.

“I love you,” he tells her. She doesn’t hear, she’ll never hear.

Diaval presses his cheek to the side of her head, along with the barrel of the gun. He closes his eyes, and remembers her face.

He pulls the trigger.

______________——-^^^vvvvv^^^/\/\/\/\/

  
He shakes the last of the dirt from his hands and stands up, looking at the grave.

There are things he never got to ask her, to tell her, to let her know. They all tear at him now.

He fishes the ring from his pocket. It glints in the light of the dusk, glitters blue, green, and gold.

He gets a flash of her eyes.

There’s nothing for him out there, nothing to live for. A man with no past, no future, stolen away from him in his sleep.

And now the only one he holds on to is gone as well, stolen, taken, like everything he ever had.

He puts the ring to his lips, whispers a prayer that no one will hear. He places it on the newly dug earth.

The spirits of the beasts sputter in him, then die. He no longer waits for them to rise from the ashes of his soul. There’s only void, emptiness. The world has never been so dark.

He feels like just a shell now, just a system of moving skin, muscle and bone, not much different from his company of reanimated corpses. He doesn’t know what to do from now on. Fight the dead, fear living, face the uncertain he supposes.

He doesn’t care.

On the horizon, the sun sets, painting the sky in hues of yellows and orange and everything in between. He still sees red. All he sees now is red.

He rolls his shoulders, heaves his bag up. His body feels heavy. He would never be able to lift the weight of her dead body over his arms.

The sun sinks, and light disappears. Diaval gazes over the dark clouds ahead, and finds no stars, no moon. Everything is dark, so dark.

He walks on.

  
———

**Author's Note:**

> This is all based from the TV series The Walking Dead, with many iconic lines and scenes and some settings from the series incorporated into the fic. 
> 
> Many songs from the soundtrack are somehow brought in as well (Warm Shadow by Fink, You Are the Wilderness by Voxhaul Broadcast, Noisy Sunday by Patrick Watson, Civilian by Wye Oak, Oats in the Water by Ben Howard, and Lead Me Home by Jamie N Commons to name a few).


End file.
